What if~Rome remained in power? Part 1)
Still to this day, the Roman Empire remains one of the world's most prominent and interesting single man Empires. With this empire also came new technologies that was not known yet to man. They even had a sizable but fearsome army which people feared for centuries. But with economic problems, social change and barbarians becoming more aggressive is what led to this Empire's fall in 476 AD. But what if the Roman Empire remained in power, what would become of Europe if it's still under Roman control? This will be the first of 3 parts of what would not only Europe would be like under Roman Control but what would also be of the world. This part will cover the real history and the first part of the first 10 centuries with the Roman Empire remaining in power. There's the real history. If you want to skip to the alternate scenario, just scroll down to the "What if?" part of this page. Real History The Roman Empire was formed sometime in the 20-15 BC after it has defeated it's rival: Carthage. With their rivals destroyed, the Romans were able to slowly and steadily build their own Empire. However, the Roman Empire also had to fight off a lot of forms of rebellion in any form. In 34 AD (roughly) a religious practitioner named Jesus of Nazareth was crucified just for his religious Beliefs, tortured and forced to carry a cross. In just 3 days, he dies. His followers carry on to spread the word of Christianity. Though, Christianity would be persecuted by the Romans and anybody converted faced either execution or Crucifixion. But in just a few centuries, Christianity would be more accepted. During the 4th century the Roman Empire was in a state of decline, it's economy was stagnating from overspending on it's military, Christianity has caused the empire to split into 2 divisions thanks in part to the Roman Emperor Constantine and has founded Constantinople. ''On top of that, the barbarians from what is now known as Britain and Germany begin to overpower the once mighty Roman Military. It wouldn't be long until the barbarians would storm into Rome and brought extreme death and destruction as they killed thoudands of people in the Roman Capital and much of the city was left in ruins. In 476 AD, the Roman Empire officially ends, and in it's wake cropped up separate kingdoms that would make up Europe until the 20th century. However, the Eastern Roman Empire survived and became the ''Byzantine Empire which endured for several centuries before being over-taken by the Ottoman Turks by 1453. What if? Now here's the universal question. What if the Roman Empire remained in power. What if somehow they were to fix all of their problems (which is unlikely) and remain in power well into the middle ages? Factors It is very unlikely for the Roman Empire to fix a lot of their problems, because by the 4th Century the problems of the Roman Empire was escellating beyond the point of no return as the Empire was split into the 2 subdivisions: the Western and the Eastern. The Eastern Roman Empire was thriving as the West was declining ever gradually. But for the sake of this alternate history scenario, let's say that the Problems of the Roman Empire were dealt with and fixed. First, the Roman Empire would have to stop overspending on the Military. One of the Empire's biggest problems is that it focused most of it's financial spending on it's Military to keep it's conquered land under Roman control. The Military itself also demanded a lot fo resources for new weapons and equipment as well as supplies and provisions, and it was quite difficult to keep them supplied with the weapons and provisions necessary to keep them going. Second is that the Romans would have to keep the anti-Christian laws in place. Another big problem for the Romans is that they lifted these laws over time and allowed Christians to practice their religion without persecution. This caused Roman society to be split among way of life and what to worship. There were still a good number of people that still thought the Roman Emperor as a god, even at the time when the Empire was beginning to crumble. The Empire itself split into 2 when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and even helped turn Byzantium into Constantinople (modern day Istanbul). Another factor is that the Empire would have to do is better deal with slave labor. The Roman Empire relied heavily on slave labor, and most were treated very badly by their owners and even other Roman residences in the many cities across Europe. The other thing it also needed to do was better deal with political corruption. As with many other governments of the Middle Ages and even today, the Roman Empire's government (mainly the Emperor) was mired in political and even economical corruption. In fact during the 4th Century, nearly 20 men were crowned Emperor which eventually spread into the Roman Senate (which held no real power). Now with all of these factors in place, let's get on with the alternate scenario. Alternate Scenario It is the 5th Century and the Roman Empire was able to fix a lot of it's internal problems and is now very stable economically as well as politically. The Empire also has more free people working good jobs such as baking and even arts. The Military is also able to hang on to the Empire's claims in Europe. The Emperor is still worshiped as a god and Christianity never saw any light in the Empire as it's laws against the religion were never lifted. With the Roman Empire still being in Power in Europe, this will change history so dramatically that it would be virtually unrecognizable. Because the Empire is still in power, Barbarian Tribes wouldn't be able to storm into the Empire and destroy it while it was down. Another thing that is for sure that in this alternate reality with Rome still a superpower in Europe, the Vikings would be nothing more than a tribal minority. They wouldn't be a dominant force like they were in our reality. In our reality, the Vikings (despite them being illiterates) were a dominant tribe in Scandinavia, they also were the pioneers of modern sea travel as they had the latest in ships which allowed them to travel to many parts of the Atlantic Ocean and even discovered lands such as Iceland, Greenland and even North America. In this alternate reality, these lands are still to be discovered. With Christianity also just a minority in this alternate reality, the crusades wouldn't exist and thus Jerselum was never conquered as the place itself is already under Roman control. What also would change is that the rivalry between Christianity and Islam would also be non-existant. But this doesn't mean everything would be rosy between the Romans and Arabic people. Speaking of which, the Arabs wouldn't also have much of an influence in this alternate reality, though they would still come with some modern mathmatics, but just not on the grand scale we see in our reality. This also means the arabic numbers wouldn't be widely used, as the west would still use the Roman Numerals. That si all for this part. The next part will cover on how the Roman Empire will deal with some other foreign influences as it'll have the Umayyad Caliphate as wellas the Mongol Empire to deal with and how it would've stand up to the Plague Pandemic as well as trying to find new lands. You can continue to this page here What if~Rome Remained in power? (Part 2)